Kevin Ferguson Producer/ Reporter, Off-Ramp

Born in Long Beach, California, Kevin graduated with a Bachelor's of Arts in Spanish. Before joining KPCC, Kevin worked for Marketplace and the District Weekly, a Long Beach magazine. He's also covered music, art and news for OC Weekly, LA Record, Arthur Magazine, and Riviera.

Stories by Kevin Ferguson

Surely by now you've heard of Burning Man. But what about the much older (and more respected) burning snowman? It's a 41 year old tradition performed at Michigan's Lake Superior State University to celebrate the coming spring.

I saw this on Chinapoly, Marketplace's blog on China written by Rob Schmitz, Marketplace's man in Shanghai. It's amazing. Rob (who at one point was KPCC's Orange County correspondent) compared the scene to something out of No Country for Old Men: equal parts disturbing and comical.

The closest a Lutheran boy gets to celebrating a bar mitzvah is a relatively somber little occasion called confirmation. It represents the culmination of learning church doctrine, and you stand before the altar in robes with your peers.

This past weekend we reported on the Metro Blue Line's disconcerting pedestrian fatality rate. We'll have more on pedestrian safety and Blue Line in the coming weeks. But for now, enjoy an extremely surreal (and extremely expensive, probably) 20+ year old promotional video for the train, starring the one and only Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! My favorite part is towards the middle: Blue Line, Red Line, Green Line, then we're done!

A couple weeks ago we told you about Free $$$, a play disguised as a self-help seminar inside Hollywood's venerable Sacred Fools theater. Late last week, we got the good news that Sacred Fools will now be showing the play through March all the way to April 3.

The Metro Blue Line runs from Downtown LA to Downtown Long Beach. It's one of the most popular light rail trains in the nation. But it's also one of the deadliest, having killed its 103rd person this past Tuesday. Off-Ramp's Kevin Ferguson asks why the line has such a dangerous record and what can be done to save more lives.

If you watched last Thursday's news on ABC7 you might have seen reporter John Gregory covering Jeff Hildreth's controversial underground project in Sierra Madre. A story Off-Ramp broke just over a month ago:

Marshelle Mills is a mother of three. Her husband works for LAUSD and — until recently — she worked in child development. She's been unemployed for some time, and she's even gotten a few job offers — offers that she says she was forced to decline.

A few weeks ago I talked with Marshelle Mills, a stay at home mom who wants to get back to work but would actually lose money if she did. You can listen to my interview with her on this week's Off-Ramp, but be sure to check out this amazing video of Marshelle and her son produced by KPCC's Cecile Gregoriades: